Blood of Kings

by Andrew James

  Darius rushed through the door a few steps behind Megabyzus. Behind him he heard another body fall, then rapid footsteps. No time to see whose they were, the false Bardiya was getting away. Megabyzus was already out of sight but Darius followed the sounds of the chase down the corridor, into a narrow, gloomy bedchamber where the air was fusty. Through the open door he saw the magus-king draw his sword and, breathing heavily, spin round to face Megabyzus. With a dark cry he lunged. Megabyzus’s sword flashed up with surprising speed for his age. Blades clanged with a spark that was blue in the gloom. Both men stepped back and their blades came up again, clashed three times, ringing loudly. Again they pulled back. Head down, Megabyzus charged, his weight like a bull as he hurtled towards the king and knocked him flying against a carved wooden screen. They fell next to the bed in a tangle of arms and legs, dropping their swords, grappling and rolling in a fierce struggle.

  Darius bounded through the doorway. Outside, shouting and fighting were coming closer. Time was running out. Darius crossed the room in four paces and stood over the men grappling on the floor, blade poised, unable to strike for fear of killing Megabyzus. The magus-king was stronger than he looked and Megabyzus was out of condition and tiring. There was more shouting outside; magi in the corridor calling out to their king. Darius ran back to the door and slammed it. It bounced off a magus’s shoulder, who barged in and threw a cut at Darius’s face with a scimitar which Darius ducked under. The scimitar thudded into the door frame by his ear, splinters flying as the curved blade cut deep into wood. As the magus struggled to free it, Darius stabbed him in the throat, pushed him out, shut the door and bolted it.

  ‘Strike!’ Megabyzus screamed urgently at Darius as the bodies rolled over and over, and men bashed sword hilts angrily against the door. Darius raised his sword but couldn’t get a clear line of sight as the magus-king rolled beneath Megabyzus. They rolled again. More hammering on the door, more sounds of fighting outside. Darius leant down and struck as they rolled a third time in a blur. He felt the blade slide into flesh. There was a groan. The magus-king stiffened, touched the wound in his side, pulled his hand away and looked at the blood. As Darius stepped closer his arm dropped to the floor, his fingers clutched at one of the silver feet of the bed and his eyes stared in horror at the tip of Darius’s akinakes pointing at his chest. ‘No! Please, I beg you! They made me do it, told me it was the Wise Lord’s command, that if I refused I’d be damned to hell …’

  Darius stabbed the blade through his heart. The body convulsed. Blood welled up from his chest, then the hand went limp.

  31

  The sudden reappearance of the eunuch Bagapata, on a tower of the castle at Sikayauvatish, provoked loud cries of surprise from the crowd of fifty thousand assembled below. From the shock on their faces, everyone had assumed he was dead. But there could be no mistaking the smooth, beardless skin, the beaky nose and fox-like features. If anyone at the foot of the tower was having difficulty making him out, they only had to listen to the name on everyone’s lips. When it was announced by a red and yellow chequered herald that Bagapata was to stand trial for the murder of Bardiya, son of Cyrus, the crowd first fell silent, then became frenzied. At Darius’s orders, five thousand cudgel-wielding soldiers had been deployed around the castle to prevent it being stormed, but such was the anger of the crowd against Bagapata, Darius began to wonder if it would be enough. Fists pounded against the cordon of soldiers, men reached up with outstretched arms towards the hated eunuch, as though hoping to pull him off the thirty-cubit-high tower with their bare hands.

  When the heaving and shoving at last died down, Darius gave a command and the royal porters ventured through the castle gatehouse carrying wooden benches. These were placed at the base of the tower and six databaras installed on them, resplendent in their judgely gowns.

  When Darius nodded his assent, the herald began reading the evidence aloud. It did not take long for him to relate Cambyses’ deathbed confession, that he had sent Bagapata to murder Bardiya before marching on Egypt. The crowd listened in delicious shock. Next came Bagapata’s own admission in the throne room in front of Darius:‘I killed him with these two hands, Great King.’ Then a string of witnesses who told of the mutilated body found floating in the lake at Bardiya’s palace, Bardiya’s bloody dagger found a short distance away in the pairidaeza garden, and the subsequent disappearance from public life of the prince. When Darius ordered the eunuch be examined, a healed stab wound was revealed on his thigh. Finally, Otaneh’s daughter and Bardiya’s other surviving wives were released from the castle and confirmed that the man on the throne had certainly not been Bardiya.

  Having heard the evidence the judges looked up at Darius, waiting for guidance on the verdict. He was disgusted. They had become so used to slavishly following Cambyses’ lead it hadn’t occurred to them to decide for themselves. ‘If you think he is guilty, convict,’ Darius shouted down. ‘If not, acquit.’

  The crowd laughed, and struck by this novel idea the judges huddled together to confer. At last a red-gowned databara announced: ‘We find the eunuch guilty as charged. For the murder of Prince Bardiya, he must die.’

  The crowd screamed their approval. But Darius wasn’t yet satisfied. These were the same judges who had bent over backwards to please Cambyses when they condemned Parmys to marry Pharaoh. Given the low esteem in which they were rightly held, their verdict was not enough. It was essential the people were left in no doubt, not just now, but for the future. Darius wanted no accusation that the man he had killed, whose head was now stuck on a spear above the castle, was the real Bardiya. A choice was whispered into Bagapata’s ear: ‘Either confess in public, and die an easy death. Or suffer impalement, and confess screaming on the stake.’

  The eunuch took only moments to decide. Walking to the edge of the tower, he held up his hands and shouted to the crowd below. ‘Persians! It is true. I, Bagapata, murdered Bardiya, on the orders of his brother.’

  From the crowd there was a low collective gasp, then cries of ‘Shame!’ and ‘Murderer!’ Thinking of Parmys being seized and bound at her father’s Hunting Lodge, Darius nodded at Megabyzus, who breathed deeply and drew back his arm. The scimitar cut a glittering arc, blood sprayed across the earthen floor of the tower, as the eunuch’s head parted from his neck.

  Darius stepped back from the spreading pool of gore, turning to leave. Otaneh stopped him with a hand on the shoulder. ‘It has to be done, Darius. And now is the moment.’

  Darius shivered. Otaneh faced the crowd and bellowed in his battlefield voice, ‘Persians! Your new king!’

  Fifty thousand Persians chanted as one: ‘Darius, Xshah-en-Xshah! Darius, King of Kings!’

  With both the impostor and the eunuch dead, and his right to the throne resoundingly acknowledged, Darius could relax at last. No one was left to challenge him. Thinking of all the obstacles he had overcome, he looked back on the last few years with satisfaction. Despite everything, he had survived. He knew that many of the men acclaiming him now had written him off when he was condemned by Cyrus, and again when he disappeared with Phanes’s army. Many of them had probably been glad to think him dead. But he had also discovered who his friends were, men who had stuck by him through difficulty and danger. Ardu and Vivana especially, but also Megabyzus, Otaneh and Gobryas. He remembered Dadarshi in Armenia. And to his eternal surprise Vinda, who had lost his left eye in that last fight, but survived.

  With a stab of regret, Darius remembered another man he had once trusted, but whose friendship had proved more fickle. The jealousy and bitterness of that final parting from Frada still hurt. But he would leave his boyhood friend in peace, to raise the horses he loved.

  Vinda’s congratulations, when Darius passed his palace on his way into Pathragada and announced that he was to be crowned as soon as a full gathering of tribal elders and satraps could be convened, seemed entirely sincere. He offered Darius his finest wine, led him to a couch, and plumped up the cushions himself before inviting him
to recline. ‘The Prophetess was right after all. Like I always say, Darius. Priests are priests, warriors are warriors and kings are kings. It’s all in the blood. Arsama must be proud?’

  Darius sipped his wine and sighed with pleasure. For thirty-eight years of his grandfather’s astonishingly long life the rights and privileges of Darius’s house had been denied. Since the fateful day when Arsama was forced to surrender his throne to the rising star Cyrus, they had been impoverished and despised. The honour of the ancient kings of Parsa had been trampled on. But they had survived. Now the wheel had turned full circle. The house of Arsama was claiming back what was rightfully theirs. And as an act of great mercy on the part of Ahura Mazda, Arsama had been allowed to live long enough to see it happen. Very soon, the kitaris crown he had worn on his head would be lowered onto the head of his grandson.

  When that day arrived Darius would finally be able to reward his friends for their loyalty. Riches and honours would be theirs. A new family would be added to the noble houses, and Hazarapatish Vivana would have the gold to gild the rest of his armour. As for his father, Darius would confirm him in the appointment he had set his heart on, as satrap of Verkana. The hunting, the fishing, the slaves and the feasting would all be his to enjoy in his declining years.

  There was also a man to be punished. An army would have to be raised, the Ammonian Sutekh-Irdis would have to die. But Darius didn’t want his reign to be about warfare. The Empire had to prosper. His mind was bursting with plans. Susa needed renovating, Parsa rebuilding, the satrapies reorganizing and the taxation system put on a sound footing. The temples in Egypt and Babylon needed re-establishing, the Royal Road expanding to India and the North, trade regenerating … There was much to be done.

  But before he could do any of it he had to bring true peace to the Empire, by uniting the blood of the Elamite house of Cyrus with that of the ancient Persian kings. He had to marry Parmys. Flanked by Ardu and Otaneh, followed at a respectful distance by a retinue of Spearbearers with their gold-topped spears, his chariot passed through the gates of Pathragada to the acclaim of the waiting crowds. The sun was shining. The Imperial city was peaceful and contented like it used to be in Cyrus’s day. His eyes bright and his hand raised in greeting, Darius laughed as people called out to him in good-natured banter. After a short while, Ardu pulled on the reins and the chariot stopped. Leaning on a staff to support his wounded leg, Ardu jumped down from the footplate and smiled. ‘This is the one.’

  Darius recognized the house. It had belonged to a noble who died with Cyrus in the Saka massacre, standing empty for a couple of years before the family, who were based in the East, rented it to some foreigners on a visiting embassy. Judging from the outside it was of modest size, but with a large walled garden. Darius had never been inside it, but he knew the type well. Comfortable without being excessively luxurious, it would probably have its own small well and a pretty courtyard with plenty of fruit trees. There were a hundred like it in the city. Just the sort of place to avoid attracting attention.

  There was a bronze lion-headed knocker on the stout but nondescript outer door. It gave a satisfying thud against the oak planks. Instead of a slave, it was opened by a man in Arab dress, his beard rather straggling and his robes grubby. He stopped suddenly and stared when he saw Darius.

  ‘Still in Pathragada, Hadar?’

  Hadar’s welcome was muted, but he invited Darius into the pretty courtyard, green with leaves and fragrant with citrus. ‘My father the king, he is angry with me. I am in no hurry to return to my land.’

  ‘Why is he angry?’ Darius asked solemnly.

  Hadar’s face was stormy. ‘Your king, he gave us only one hundred talents. My father, he blames me. He says, “Go to Persia and speak with these arrogant men. Do not return without the rest of my gold.”’

  ‘That was years ago, Hadar.’

  The Arab shrugged. ‘My father is not a merciful man. Perhaps when you are king you will give him the gold? Then I can go home.’

  ‘Your father promised our army thousands of sheep. He gave us barely a hundred.’

  Hadar turned up his palms. ‘There was a plague among our sheep. It was the will of Orotalt.’

  Once Darius had wanted to kill this man for stealing Parmys’s jewels. Now the Arab seemed insignificant. Darius clapped him on the back. ‘There was no plague, my friend. But I shall see what can be done. First, you have something of mine?’

  Hadar nodded, pointing with his chin to a set of doors at the far end of the courtyard. Darius saw suddenly how beautiful this particular house was. A fountain played in the sunlight, tinkling water a gentle backdrop to the chattering birds as they darted about, chasing late flying insects. The doorways were beautifully carved wood, the plaster rendering as white as sheep’s milk cheese, the polished stone columns of the porticoes as smooth as marble. Everything was alive and bright. The first autumn leaves were crisping and turning to gold. Darius felt a sparkle around him, and stood listening to the stillness.

  He walked into the private quarters. There was a scent of jasmine and roses and cedar. He closed his eyes and breathed it in.

  ‘The gods have heard that you slew wicked Anzu among the mountains. They rejoiced, and were glad …’

  The voice was clear, high and sweet. A wave of emotion engulfed Darius. When he opened his eyes there was no one in front of him. Instead, he felt her touch on the back of his shoulder. Slowly, hardly daring to breathe, he turned. Parmys was dressed in a gown of sheer blue linen. She was as sweet as the spring rain, as bright as the brightest jewel, as warm as the afternoon sun.

  Darius felt his heart beating as she put her arms around his neck and tilted her face up to his.

  Author’s Note

  Blood of Kings was inspired by an ancient text I saw carved high on a mountainside in Iran. Inscribed nearly 2,500 years ago at Darius’s command, the Behistun Inscription describes the vast size of the Persian Empire and tells how he became its ruler.

  As well as Iran, to research the book I visited Libya, Syria, Jordan and Egypt, where I lived in the desert for three years. Given the uprisings which took place across the Arab world from 2011 onwards, I could hardly have chosen four more topical places. But it was the desert itself, and Siwa Oasis, on the border between Libya and Egypt, which captured my heart.

  The Western Desert and its oases are timeless and ancient. Ammon’s temple still stands, with the wind swirling around the temple mount. The Berber tribesmen who live there now are as independent-minded and as treacherous as the original Ammonians, with tomb robbing and tourist fleecing their major pastimes beyond growing dates and olives. There is even a Great Chief, though he is now called a sheikh and drives a second-hand Chrysler 4WD.

  Once a major slaving route, for thousands of years smugglers have trodden the desert trails from Libya into Egypt. And for thousands of years the Egyptian Army has fought them from far-flung desert outposts like the Spring of the Shade, modern Ain Della. They are still there, the small detachments of bored soldiers clinging to scant water, with packs of wild dogs their only company. When I visited Ain Della with an Egyptian Army escort I was greeted like travellers always are in the desert, with curiosity and a thirst for a break from the monotony of a lonely life.

  Within months of my writing the passages in the novel about smoke drifting over the Nile, and youths with muffled faces confronting troops on the barricades, it was happening for real, with Egypt’s revolution erupting around me. Isolated in my remote desert house, when the internet was cut off by the government to try and quell the revolution, I lost contact with the outside world. A nearby German archaeological mission packed up, hired armed guards and made a dash for Cairo airport 850 kilometres away. I was left virtually the only Westerner for hundreds of kilometres. A few kilometres to my west was the Libyan border, where in a few months British jets would start bombing Colonel Gaddafi. Far across open desert to my south lay the Sudan, and hundreds of kilometres to the east lay the Nile, where Egypt’s popula
tion centres were gripped by violence. To my north was the barren Qattara Depression and El Alamain, where the 8th Army Desert Rats had fought Rommel’s Afrika Korp to a standstill in the Second World War. Stuck in this far-flung spot, cut off from everything, I had no idea what was happening. It was a dramatic and rather frightening introduction to how life must have felt in past times, starved of news, having no way to call for assistance and no way to escape.

  Overnight, the peace and stability of the Mubarak era disintegrated. From sleeping with my front door wide open in the night heat, I had to keep it bolted. There was a knife beneath my pillow, a lump-hammer and cudgel beside my bed. These were not wild precautions. At three a.m. one night that summer, rocks were hurled through my window by disgruntled locals who wanted me out. Another day I was attacked with broken glass and threatened. Previously I used to walk at night on the dunes to the south of my house, enjoying the solitude and silence. This stopped, when a man was beaten to death a hundred metres from my house. Justice local tribe style, it would have been unthinkable a few months earlier. Who he was, what his crime had been, I never found out. Surprisingly I didn’t hear his screams.

  Visiting Alexandria 650 kilometres away, I saw the burnt-out buildings and rows of armoured personnel carriers and tanks in the streets. The few Western supermarkets had been looted and trashed. Gone were the false smiles reserved for tourists. Gone too were the tourists. Everyone was suspicious. I went to renew my visa, but was told that I had been in Egypt long enough. What was I really doing here, anyway? Was I a spy? I must leave. Absurd as it was, I heard the word ‘spy’ several times over my remaining months in Egypt, sometimes hurled with real anger.

  In Darius’s day, as now, religious fundamentalism was a major factor in causing Egypt’s turbulence. In remote, conservative Siwa – where married women are not allowed to show their hands in public, let alone their faces – it is easy to see a direct continuity between today’s ultra-religious Salafists and Muslim Brotherhood, and the socially conservative population which rose up against Cambyses after the death of their bull-god.